FORTY DAYS HATH SEPTEMBER
by Mary Catherine Aucoin

Excerpt:
“Well, here we go then. I said I wouldn’t go and I didn’t. I finally did what I wanted for a change, instead of the “proper” thing to do.”

Angela stood in the doorway taking in the room with one long sweeping gaze. As she made her way through the vacant room, she slowed in front of a picture that sat on the Baby Grande. The picture was oddly placed behind a large bowl of dying roses. The scarf that lay under it had slid, hanging softly to the floor. She was alone in the room. Odd, there were so many people in and out of the house earlier. The quietness seemed strange, lonely, and eternal.
The picture spoke without words. She wanted to touch it; but not the picture, the love. The love that was so evident in the picture. She wanted to touch the love, again. Off in the distance a movement caught her attention. She moved to a corner of the room where her presence would go un-noticed. She thought, “I don’t know why I think anyone would notice they hadn’t before.” She felt that most of her life had gone un-noticed. There had been no great deeds in her life to make anyone stand up and take notice. She was certainly no Joyce Meyer. Her ministry had never reached that level and she was not sure that she ever wanted it to get that large. Small intimate gatherings were more her style. Her comfort zone was with a few people and one on one ministering. Until now there was nothing that would make her memorable to anyone that did not know her personally. She questioned God constantly, never quite sure if she was fulfilling the plan He had set out for her. If she could start over what would she do differently? Well, there was no sense in looking back. “It’s the present that needs to be dealt with,” she thought to herself. She always thought too much. She had kept her thoughts to herself and put them down in her manuscripts. Writing had been a good outlet for her throughout the years. She enjoyed the opportunities to speak to women’s groups and organizations. But she found that in writing her deepest thoughts were somehow transparent.

There was only one person other than Jesus that she thought understood her insecurities. Joe always listened and at least pretended to understand what she was talking about. But he was gone. Even when he was alive he had never belonged to her. Their timing had never been right. When she was single he was not and vice-versa. But their friendship was stronger than any marriage she had ever known. Angela always attributed that to the lack of an intimate relationship between them. She had learned over the years that relationships somehow became all ‘muddled up’ as she called it when sex came into play. Joe had been a stabilizing force in her life of mountains and valleys, and deserts, and had always had a way of making her think straight. His six-foot plus frame carried him well. He was a striking man that exuded strength in character as well as having an almost Moses on the mountain persona when he entered a room. A powerful, no holes barred preacher that could and would be brutally honest when it came to where he saw a person in regards to salvation. At times that honesty made Angela cringe as though God himself had pointed his finger at an area in her life that had been hidden from her, but she welcomed it. “I wish he were here now,” she thought. “It would be good if he were here now.” There she went, thinking again.

Two elderly women had wandered through the door coming in from the hall on the other side of the room. The long span of hallway that ran past the great room allowed for two entrances into the room. The builders had sly little remarks about that. “Too good to walk the forty paces to the first door, I reckon,” she had overheard one of them say during the building.
The two women were speaking quietly and looking at the pictures of the family that Angela had on the far wall. She called it her family gallery. Angela tried to hear what they were saying but it was very faint.
“I really didn’t know her that well.” The one woman whispered to the other.
“Then why did you come?” the other replied. It was more of a reprimand than a question.
“My thought exactly,” Angela thought shaking her head and grinning.
There was no response from the lady for a minute or two while she seemed to question her motive herself. As they walked around the room it finally slipped out without her even realizing it.
“How beautiful this place is; I’ve always wondered what it looked like inside.”


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Forty Days Hath September is a love story...a story of a womans love for the Lord, a love for her children and a man she would never marry. It is a story of forgiveness and learning where God is when Heaven is silent.
A funeral brings together a family separated by distance and beliefs. While staying at their mother's house two sisters and their brother along with the grandchildren come to grips with their spiritual beliefs and see first hand the foundation of their mother's faith.
It is a story of perfect healing and the lives that "perfect healing" affects.
Gripping and life changing this book will reveal God in ways that you never dared to believe.
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"Forty Days Hath September sets a new standard for Christian Fiction. Honest, heartwarming and thought-provoking...with a surprise at every turn. With so much rich imagery, once I got started reading, I did not want to put it down!"
Janet Gibson Uffinger, Editor of NEXT! Magazine